About
James W. Marcum, PhD
dba Marcum Turnarounds
Administrator, Business Owner/Operator, Professor/Scholar
Historian, Management Strategist, Futurist
Jim Marcum uniquely bridges both sides of the town-gown divide. He brings the two cultures together in programs, community projects, and business and organization strategies. Historian, futurist, and hands-on problem solver, he has more than 25 years of administrative and business experience and 15 years of college and university teaching.
Biographical Summary
Born and educated in Texas, J W Marcum (JM) graduated from Harlingen High School early, and from Texas A&I with a BA in Psychology and an MA in history in four years, barely 21. Without a career plan he taught high school one year and worked on a small daily newspaper for a year before going into graduate studies and a career in college teaching. He rose quickly through to ranks and became a tenured full professor at Oklahoma Baptist U. at age 35.
He made a major career change in 1980, partnering, then buying a small auto dealership (GM-Toyota) in the Texas panhandle. He sold that, then later another dealership (Chrysler-Dodge), with stints in securities and international trade industries in between. The limitations of main street business led to a second career change; he returned for a post-doc masters in library science and became an academic library administrator, moving to larger libraries and greater challenges over the course of 18 years. He liked the mix of intellectual and research activity with the real-life work of administering budgets and people to support higher education endeavors. But he remained unfulfilled.
In addition to numerous innovations during these years, JM found a voice through writing, starting with some 300 book reviews on management, productivity, and quality improvement studies for the National Productivity Review. A string of 20 academic and scholarly articles followed, leading to an invited book-length study. The learning process, from the perspective of the learner rather than the teacher, increasingly became his focus.
In 2011 Dr. Marcum became a Professor at the Queens College GSLIS, teaching primarily academic librarianship and library management. He has also returned to his “historian” roots with his study of North Jersey.
James W. Marcum, PhD
Professor and Director
Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
Queens College, City University of New York
